Pretending To Be A Boss

Returning to the Sea of Trees gave Tang Xian a feeling of both physical and mental pleasure.

In the short ten hours he spent at the Pyramid, he was extremely busy. Once back at the Sea of Trees, even though Tang Xiaojiu and Tang Gazi had been hungry for ten hours and kept urging him to cook, he was too lazy to bother. He was going to sleep first.

He had sent Dong Ran back once before, and by calculating the time she had been there, he guessed the girl was probably panicking by now, even though he had changed some of her ideas.

Dong Ran indicated that once she finished reporting her progress to the second young mistress, she would return to the Sea of Trees as soon as her time was up.

Tang Xian was not in a hurry. After all, Dong Ran had repaired the fence. Before capturing the Ice Scream Cat, all that was needed was to finish digging the water channels.

Before leaving, Tang Xian asked casually:

"What does Li Xiaoyu generally ask about?"

"Just about what you've done and where you've been."

"She's even more boring than me. You don't need to report to her in the future."

"Ah? But the second young mistress will punish me."

"She's asking favors from me now. Next time she asks about my business, tell her I won't let you speak of it."

"I feel like you're setting me up."

Tang Xian didn't respond, turned to his side, and fell asleep.

Dong Ran thought that she would help cover some tracks too. She didn't report everything, after all.

Reflecting on Tang's experience of living under the second young mistress's surveillance for six years, and how he just cursed the second young mistress as an idiot, Dong Ran mused that maybe Tang didn't hate the second young mistress as much as it seemed.

Dong Ran soon left.

Tang Xiaojiu started to feel uncomfortable.

"Tang Xian, we've run out of food you left us, and it just disappears out of the blue."

Tang Xian, with his eyes half-closed and ready to sleep, still replied:

"You probably ate it all, didn't you? Children need to be honest."

"Did I finish it?"

Tang Xiaojiu began to seriously ponder this question.

The lavish food, clearly present on the table while eating, had disappeared before she was full and came back to her senses.

To explain this unreasonable phenomenon, Tang Xiaojiu wouldn't suspect eating too fast but wondered if the food had vanished on its own.

"Write out the twenty-seven characteristic external expressions of herbivorous quarry creatures from memory. Once you're done, the food will reappear."

Tang Xiaojiu was stunned.

She recalled the first time she was dragged in to learn knowledge.

Though it was said that learning was only second in joy to eating, why didn't it feel joyful at all?

Characteristics of herbivorous creatures?

Her little head tilted seriously, pondering for a long time until Tang Xian's breathing became steady. Tang Xiaojiu still couldn't figure it out.

It's probably about eating meat, she thought. The characteristics of herbivorous creatures must be that they like meat! A creature that doesn't like meat couldn't exist in this world!

So she prepared to write "eating meat" twenty-seven times in the little notebook Tang Xian left behind.

Wait, what was twenty-seven again?

And how to write the words?

...

...

After sleeping for about six hours, Tang Xian woke up. When he woke up, Tang Xiaojiu and Tang Gazi had also slept for a while. Tang Xiaojiu had drool at the corner of her mouth, smacking her lips together occasionally in her sleep, undoubtedly dreaming of eating.

He smiled and started preparing food.

Tang Xian went to the lakeside, ready to catch a few Glow Phosphorus Fish.

At the same time, he began to ponder the matter of the Ice Scream Cat. Tang Bingxiang was very important, as food preservation was a challenge.

To achieve refrigeration, there were two types of people who could do it in the quarry: those who had awakened battle gifts related to ice, which were beyond Tang Xian's knowledge, and the Ice Scream Cats, enhanced creatures that lived in the jungle.

It was said that they could only be seen at the lakeside for less than an hour between five and six in the morning and usually left right after hunting.

Although they breathed ice, Ice Scream Cats normally didn't live in cold habitats. Like the Hell Flame Wolf, they preferred to be active in subtemperate zones.

Tang Xian figured that the Sea of Trees must have Ice Scream Cats. In the morning, he could sometimes see frost during this season, and the Sea of Trees didn't have significant temperature fluctuations, hovering around nine degrees, so frost was unreasonable.

Cats were not numerous in the Sea of Trees. The Gem Tiger, a big cat species, was one of them, but this type was much smarter than the Ice Scream Cat, having left this part of the Sea of Trees for the far reaches after Tang Xiaojiu came.

Ice Scream Cats were different. Gem Tigers didn't rely solely on fish—they could eat deer, dogs, and monkeys. The Ice Scream Cat, an enhanced creature, was at the bottom of the ecological chain and had to eat fish.

With delicious, tender, phosphorus fish inhabiting this lake, Ice Scream Cats were likely to be present. Such creatures could probably sense Tang Xiaojiu's routines, figuring that during their activity hours, the humanoid disaster-level creature living in the treehouse was likely still fast asleep.

Tang Xian meticulously observed the ecosystem of the forest sea.

The reason he dared to settle in this place was indeed because at the top of the food chain here was Tang Xiaojiu.

After all, this area used to be only a yellow zone, where perfect-level boss creatures like the Gem Tigers and Hell Flame Wolves were basically at the top of the food chain.

Tang Xian had patrolled the forest sea with Tang Xiaojiu flaunting her borrowed authority, and with the arrival of Qing Jiuyu, a character that could be likened to a high-status cultivator ascending to the Great Vehicle in a cultivation novel, in a region that seemed to still be cultivating their base physical and qi energies.

The unique scent of the Biphasic Orchid he left behind also helped Tang Xian attain a high status in the forest sea, which was rife with fox clans.

The forest sea was actually quite vast, with approximately fifteen perfect-level boss creatures and about forty perfect-level creatures living in it.

They lived in the forest sea and none dared to harass Tang Xian, firstly because of Tang Xiaojiu and Tang Xian, and secondly because of those red-line grasses.

Tang Xian also hoped the place he lived could be as idyllic as possible with birdsong and fragrant flowers. Mainly, they didn't look very appetizing, so everyone maintained a respectful distance from one another's waters.

Tang Xian planned to use a simple method to attract the Ice Scream Cats, relying on the plants provided by Shang Lu.

Camphor grass, also known as catnip.

It's an exceptionally attractive thing for cats, as most can't resist it. After smelling the scent or consuming it, they become incredibly excited. However, unlike some prohibited substances, catnip is not addictive and doesn't have any adverse effects on cats.

At most, it turns these aloof creatures into dumb animals similar to Huskies momentarily.

In his prop bag, among the many seeds provided by Shang Lu, there were catnip seeds. There were both ungerminated and mature products.

Originally, he hadn't planned on using it to capture Ice Scream Cats, as they weren't part of his plan at the time.

But when he heard Tang Xiaojiu talk about flaunting borrowed authority, he wondered if it would be useful for big cats like Gem Tigers.

After all, many ancient people petted cats, but very few petted tigers.

He originally wanted to try it. However, later on, the Gem Tiger took the initiative to withdraw to the far side of the forest sea. He decided to spare the tiger when possible, planning to let it off the hook.

Shang Lu had provided plenty of mature products for comparison and observation, to see how different the process would be from the ungerminated growth to the direct mature growth.

The mature products were sealed in bags along with the soil from the cultivation chamber and looked like specimens from afar.

Tang Xian slowly opened these camphor grass packets and chose a suitable location that looked as natural as possible to plant them by the lake, a path Tang Xiaojiu must take when fishing. Basically, other creatures wouldn't approach it.

After getting all this done, Tang Xian planned to lie in ambush from four to seven in the morning, waiting for Tang Bingxiang's arrival.

With ample time left, after catching some fish, Tang Xian returned to the tree house to start preparing the afternoon meal.

By the time he got back to the tree house, Qiao Shanshan had already arrived.

She stood outside the fence, looking warily around.

Then, seeing Tang Xian roll up his sleeves, his trouser legs covered in mud, and carrying a basket of fish, she was a bit slow to react.

She had imagined that Tang Xian would have built a hideout somewhere hidden in the forest sea that would be very difficult for creatures to find.

But she hadn't expected Tang Xian to brazenly build a house on these massive Hundred-Handed Wood trees on the periphery of the forest sea.

Looking at the man with the hermit-like ease of someone gathering chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence, enjoying the leisurely sight of the southern mountains, she blurted out:

"Did you grow up in the mining area?"

After she spoke, she regretted it; in the Human World, that phrase is used to describe someone as barbaric. She had only wanted to express her surprise in a literal sense.

Because to her, Tang Xian seemed to fit in perfectly here, with no sense of incongruity.

Tang Xian didn't mind and said lightly,

"I didn't grow up in the mining area, but I plan to retire there. You arrived just in time, I was about to make some food."

Qiao Shanshan nodded, still somewhat at a loss. The idea of settling in the red zone was quite a shock to her.

As they walked a few steps, Tang Xian's nose twitched.

When he had returned to the forest sea, he had smelled something, but wasn't sure what it was. After sleeping and waking up, he realized the scent was clearer.

"Did you bring guests too?"

"Guests?"

"A few hours ago, someone was making their way here from the direction of the Red Soil Forest. They should be here in about half an hour. They're all women."

"How do you know?" Qiao Shanshan figured out who those people were.

"It's one of the abilities I awakened in the mining area, but you'll have to join my team before I can tell you."

Qiao Shanshan nodded, thinking she should be polite, so she said,

"Yes, you could say they are guests."

"We don't have extra bowls or food, so they will have to go hungry."

"Then let them starve."

Having glanced at Qiao Shanshan's current honesty level, Tang Xian could guess these weren't the usual kind of guests.

He didn't say much more. It was common knowledge that one couldn't just wander into the red zone haphazardly. Those women lacked common sense and were probably even more foolish than Dong Ran.